Education Commons^™

Covid Anxiety And Stress In Higher Ed (Cash), Letitia Bergantz, Christopher E. Curtis

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

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College is a time of increased stress and anxiety. The current changes in attendance and methods of instruction due to COVID-19 have demonstrated even higher levels of stress, anxiety, and mental health issues. Tailoring interventions to the specific needs of a campus community has been proposed as an appropriate means to the current crisis. This study identifies the mental health needs of students at a rural college as they pertain to the effects of the pandemic.

Questionnaires collected data from college students (N=33) at Athens State University, a rural university in …

Using ‘How To …’ Videos In Feedforward Practices To Support The Development Of Academic Writing, Sally Quinn Dr

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

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The transition to Higher Education is full of new challenges for students not least the challenge to develop a style of writing expected within one’s discipline of study at the HE level. Feedback on students’ assessments can be one way that guides students to focus on the aspects of their writing that they should aim to improve at different points of their study but often students report difficulty in understanding markers’ comments and exactly how to improve on these skills. We developed a library of 27 five minute ‘How to…’ videos …

Full Issue: Journal On Empowering Teaching Excellence, 2022 Special Issue (Vol. 5, Iss. 3)

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

The full-length 2022 Special Issue (Volume 5, Issue 3) of the Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

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Student Anxiety, Acceptance, And Experience Using The Immediate Feedback – Assessment Technique®️, Kirstin Kuchler, Lizbeth Finestack

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

The use of multiple-choice testing is common among all levels of education. This study examined one type of multiple-choice testing: the Immediate Feedback – Assessment Technique^®️ (IF-AT^®️), which uses an answer-until-correct testing format. More than 300 undergraduate students in a speech-language-hearing sciences course used the IF-AT ^®️ to take course exams. After each of the first two exams, students were given an optional survey which probed their levels of anxiety, acceptance of the IF-AT ^®️ format, and experience using the format. Descriptive statistics demonstrated that while students do experience test anxiety, they also widely accept and appreciate …

Teaching Preservice Teachers In The Time Of Covid: What’S Worth Keeping?, Kathy Liu Sun, Jennifer L. Ruef, Kathleen Jablon Stoehr, Madeline Ahearn

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

As we begin to transition from online instruction to in-person, we (four mathematics teacher educators) reflect on how COVID-19 impacted our instruction and address the question: what will we take back to in-person instruction? This article includes our individual reflections and an analytical synthesis of them. Findings reveal that there were unanticipated ways that human connection and consideration arose from teaching online, much of which we want to maintain in some form when returning to brick and mortar classrooms. We conclude by highlighting the value and importance of reflection for our own well-being.

Happiness In Mathematics Education: The Experiences Of Preservice Elementary Teachers, Jeffrey Pair, Kent Dinh

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In this paper, we discuss preservice elementary teachers (PSTs) self-report of their happiness or unhappiness. Several times throughout a mathematics content capstone course, PSTs responded to prompts in which they described times from their past schooling experiences or during the course in which they experienced happiness or unhappiness in learning mathematics. Through thematic analysis, we examined their common experiences related to happiness and their mathematics learning. We found that PSTs’ happiness is related to expectations of themselves, their teachers, their peers, and mathematics itself. The study illuminates PST beliefs about mathematics teaching, collaborative group work, and the nature of mathematical …

Preparing English Teachers To Teach Global Englishes Language Teaching In Thailand: My Personal And Professional Journey, Denchai Prabjandee

Journal of Educational Research and Innovation

The global spread of English has implications for English language teaching (ELT), in which teachers need to prepare learners to use English with culturally diverse English users outside of the classrooms. This requires teachers to change how they conceptualize the kind of English they teach and how English should be taught. An emerging ELT paradigm of Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT) was developed to respond this change. Based on a teacher educator’s experiences to equip English teachers in Thailand with GELT knowledge and skills to implement it in the classroom, this article explores his personal journey of learning about GELT …

Development Of Instrument To Assess Influence Of Extension Conference On Intended Outcomes, Marina D. Denny, Martha A. Ellard

The Journal of Extension

The Annual Conference for Mississippi State University Extension is the sole event at which the majority of Extension personnel gather for networking, organizational updates, recognition of efforts, and professional development. Extension leaders plan this conference with intended outcomes but without ever evaluating those outcomes beyond attendee satisfaction. We developed an evaluation instrument to determine how certain conference events influence participants’ critical psychological states and ultimately, their perceived motivation, professional enrichment, opportunities for networking, professional accountability, and organizational awareness. Rather than simply assessing attendee satisfaction, this instrument may help inform planning for successive Extension conferences and other professional development events.

Qualitative Coding As A Pedagogy For Fostering Professional Dispositions And Reflexivity, Kristina M. Valtierra, Lesley N. Siegel

The Qualitative Report

Many fields require practitioners to develop the dispositions, reflection, and reflexivity skills to navigate complex professional demands. Yet, there are limited methods for fostering these skills. Given that the act of qualitative coding is both iterative and reflexive, this paper shares an innovative approach to teaching students how to apply coding to their own reflective writing. We feature our process of teaching preservice teachers our self-coding method and lessons learned along the way from engaging 100 teacher candidates in the practice. Over four years, across three different higher education settings, graduate and undergraduate teacher candidates alike demonstrated insightful reflections about …

"A Virtual Community Literacy Partnership: A Place-Based Reading And Writing Initiative Between College Of Education Students And Urban Middle School Students", Anne Katz Ph.D., Justin Hanson

Literacy Practice and Research

How can I reflect on my practice as a literacy teacher? “I want to be the type of teacher who inspires great writing from my students, and makes them yearn for more knowledge.”

As a reading professor, I am inspired by the words Justin wrote in the pre-project survey at the beginning of the semester. In the midst of a pandemic, how could I create a learning experience to facilitate a literacy collaboration with local middle school students? I planned the community literacy partnership in the context of a College of Education grant written the previous year. This format anticipated …

A State University’S Assessment Of Acue: Feasible Model For Evaluating The Impact Of A Faculty Instruction Quality Program, Jeffrey Budziak, Daniel Super, Thomas Gross, Douglas Mcelroy

Teacher-Scholar: The Journal of the State Comprehensive University

State comprehensive universities often stress the development of teaching quality to improve the outcomes and retention of students, especially for recently matriculated students. These universities invest in teaching quality programs, but often lack a feasible method to examine the longitudinal impacts of these programs. The purpose of this paper is to provide a model for universities to evaluate outcomes related teaching quality programs. ACUE, a teaching quality program, was implemented across 30 instructors, which equated to 463 course sections. ACUE instructors were matched to non-ACUE instructors using propensity score matching (PSM) and compared on the rate of end-of-the-semester students with …

Replication Or Reinvention: Educators’ Narratives On Teaching In Higher Education During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Viola Manokore, Jeff Kuntz

Higher Learning Research Communications

Objectives: The purpose of the study was to examine narratives about the effect of the sudden transition from face-to-face teaching to emergency remote teaching necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic on post-secondary educators.

Method: We conducted interviews with 11 post-secondary educators from five post-secondary institutes in one province in Canada. Educators were asked to reflect on their experiences during the transition from in-person to remote teaching and learning.

Results: Our thematic analysis revealed that educators’ experiences were influenced by three main factors: (a) student engagement, interactions, and persistence in learning; (b) competence in the application of teacher technological pedagogical content knowledge …

The Impact Of Software Applications On Enhancing The Quality Of Educational Outputs (An Applied Study At Sharjah Police Academy), Medhat Aboubakar

Journal of Police and Legal Sciences

The study aims to introduce the concept of the role of interactive software applications, with application to the adopting of the Police Sciences Academy of specialized renewable educational methods, in addition to investing in software applications, multimedia and its smart applications that enable it to adapt to these modern and emerging data. The importance of using technology and modern applications in education as an effective and integrated approach to improving the quality and efficiency of educational outcomes through applying the best practices of software applications and integrating them into the educational learning environment, as a driving force to achieve a …

Flexible Facilitation: Coaching And Modelling To Support Inclusive Education, Danielle Lane, Sarah Semon, Nicholas Catania, Khalid M. Abu-Alghayth Phd

The Qualitative Report

The practices of education, such as separate and resource placements, pull-out services, scripted intervention programmes, an emphasis on diagnoses, and behaviorist discipline practices, are not conducive to the goals of inclusive education. This study demonstrates how one instructional coach worked to disrupt traditional special education practices and guide special educators towards the use of more effective research-based instructional strategies and collaborative practices to promote inclusion. Using Robert Stake’s intrinsic case study methodology, we explored the perceived roles of coaching and modelling to promote inclusion through the lens of one coach who modelled methods for the special education teachers in multiple …

Community Mapping 2.0: Using Technology To Raise Community Awareness, Chris Sclafani

Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research

Community mapping can be an important tool for educators who aim to freely allow students to share their own connections and experiences. During community mapping, students identify areas within their own localities that matter to them, and engage in various literacy events centered on those places. Often, classes will study foreign lands and cultures during the course of a school year. While this is a wonderful learning opportunity, do they take the time to look deeper into their own personal neighborhoods and surroundings? This study uncovers the nuances of community mapping, as a group of third grade students work through …

Probation, Practitioners, And Pedagogy: Lessons Learned From Self-Study, David Schmid, Matt Townsley

Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research

The reward systems typically found in colleges and universities often serve as a barrier rather than a catalyst for improving teaching. As such, an increasing number of university faculty members are using their own classrooms as a site of inquiry and reflective practice (e.g. self-study) to concurrently advance their own research and teaching. This paper portrays a yearlong self-study of two former practitioners turned probationary faculty members within a college of education at a comprehensive regional university. Findings include tensions within relationships, the influence of our past positions, the engagement of students, and how scholarship requirements influence our professional lives. …

Factors Influencing Students' Willingness To Communicate In Korean Elementary School Efl Classrooms, Mark A. Matuzas

Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research

In this teacher-research study I examine factors influencing willingness to communicate (WTC) on 39 students, grades 1-6, enrolled in after-school EFL classes in Korea. Quantitative data from student surveys, was analyzed to identify student perceptions of their comfort when engaged in various types of communicative classroom activities and to identify trends occurring across gender and grade levels. Qualitative data gathered from journals recorded after each day’s lessons was coded to identify themes related to classroom WTC. Findings from these data sources were compared with observation records and self-reflection. Factors identified that influence student WTC included: familiarity with speaking tasks, class …

Significant Relationships, Suzanne Porath

Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research

No abstract provided.

Assessing Teacher Candidates’ Pedagogical Judgement: An Analysis Of Clinically-Based Instructional Assignments, Sonia Janis, Mardi Schmeichel, Joseph Mcanulty, Chantelle Grace, Kaitlin Wegrzyn

Journal of Educational Supervision

Research on clinically-based teacher education indicates that facilitating clinical experiences for teacher candidates improves their preparation for the profession. While we have answered the call to implement rich clinical experiences in our teacher education program, we have found that we also needed to design new, robust strategies to assess what the candidates are taking away from their clinical experiences. This paper describes our use of Horn and Campbell’s (2015) notion of “pedagogical judgment” to analyze the work of social studies teacher candidates in clinical placements. We describe a rubric developed to evaluate candidates’ pedagogical judgment and offer insights into the …

Stipends Successfully Swell Circle, Thomas J. Clark

Journal of Math Circles

The efficacy of stipends in drawing new teachers to participate in math teachers' circle and encouraging previous participants to attend meetings regularly was investigated in this study. A kickoff event was planned to start the year with more fanfare than usual. Stipends were advertised for teachers who attended at least three meetings. Matched pairs data analysis and survey results were used to investigate the observed increase in attendance.

In The Middle Of Appalachia: Balancing Teacher Talk With Student Discourse, Ronald V. Morris, Denise Shockley, Sonya Davis

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Appalachian students co-constructed knowledge with their teacher while examining a non-fiction book about Thanksgiving. Fifth grade students used an informational trade book to promote student discourse while using text-based evidence. Students learned about Native Americans and Pilgrims as they engaged in student discourse balanced with teacher talk. Students used an inquiry arc that involved questioning texts and examining sources, and inquiry helped students to investigate narrative text as a source of data. Students used inquiry to enhance their metacognition about historical events. Students exercised agency as they recounted family history and their heritage as part of their memory. Remembering was …

Formative Assessment To Help Students Decode, Process, And Evaluate Social Studies Information, Cory Callahan

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Here the author explores formative assessment within a context of research-based social studies instructional approaches. While the notions of inquiry, alternative assessment, disciplinary thinking and interpretation, and using visual documents as powerful resources each provide an important element of conceptual structure, this article purposefully concentrates on the process of constructive evaluation. The author posits a wise-practice routine for developing formative assessment practices that cohere with criteria-based assessment and its tendency to describe what students did well, what they could have done differently to improve their recent academic performance, and, importantly, how they can improve subsequent academic performance. The article also …

History Or Heritage? An Analysis Of Ghana’S Primary School History Curriculum, Charles Adabo Oppong

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Abstract

At a time that history has gained its place in Ghana’s basic school curriculum, considerable differences of opinion arise, not about the subject’s significance in the school curriculum but concerning the legitimacy of the subject title - that is, whether or not the subject should be referenced ‘History of Ghana’ or ‘Heritage of Ghana’. The different opinions reflect Lowenthal’s (1998) observation that history and heritage are separate disciplines. However, the two subjects are often used interchangeably (Mermion, 2012) and “are habitually confused with each other” (Lowenthal 1998, p. x). While expert academics may be at ease with the distinctions …

Exploring Students’ Experiences In Occupational Therapy Education: A Phenomenological Study Of Professional Identity Development, Peter O. Ndaa, Katherine Wimpenny, Rebecca Khanna, Simon Goodman, Ajediran I. Bello

The Qualitative Report

The existing literature on professional identity enactment and development, subscribes to students’ socializing in a learning environment, where they regularly encounter practicing professionals throughout their education period. However, in most countries with less resourced occupational therapists like Ghana, education in occupational therapy is fraught with inadequate number of same professionals to mentor undergraduate occupational therapy students. The students are thus faced with serious dilemma regarding their professional identity which tends to elicit a bleak perception of their chosen career. The present study was therefore envisaged to interpret and analyse the students’ lived experiences, with the view to capture the process …

A Creative Solution To The Traditional School Schedule, Lisa Rivera

South Carolina Association for Middle Level Education Journal

This article examines the current traditional school schedule and its effects on teacher retention, student engagement, morale, and overall academic success. This article also explores the pros and cons of a four-day school week and offers an alternative weekly structure.

Connecting Weirdness And Wonder To Mathematics, Elizabeth Basile, Deborah H. Mcmurtrie, Bridget K. Coleman

South Carolina Association for Middle Level Education Journal

Middle school students are weird and wonderful. Why not bring some of that weirdness and wonder into the mathematics classroom? Effective teachers of mathematics can create a culture of engagement, curiosity, and collaboration in mathematics instruction by presenting “weird” problems (as opposed to word problems) and giving students opportunities to explore their wonderings. Inspired by “the bizarreness effect,” the problems presented here are infused with humor and designed to intrigue young adolescents.

“Teaching In A War Zone”: A Collective Reflection On Learning From A Diversity Course In Contentious Times, Elena Aydarova, Jacob Kelley, Kristen Daugherty

Journal of Educational Controversy

Diversity courses in teacher education often become sites of conflict and contestation. Numerous proposals have been put forward on how to address these conflicts and contestations through pedagogical interventions and teaching innovations. However, such proposals rarely take into account the impact of broader sociopolitical forces on classroom interactions and learning. In this collective reflection, we document our experiences of navigating a diversity course in highly contentious times when anti-critical race theory campaigns resulted in widespread bans on the teaching of “divisive concepts.” We explore critical incidents and challenging situations to capture the erosion of civility and engagement with evidence. In …

A Critically Conscious Analysis Of Institutionalized Racism In Teacher Education: Imagining Anti-Racist Teacher Preparation Spaces, Tatiana Joseph, Jennifer Brownson, Kristine Lize, Elizabeth Drame, Laura Owens

Journal of Educational Controversy

Teacher education scholars serving five different teacher education license programs came together to collectively examine this question: What would it look like if a college of education took on the work of revealing and dismantling structural racism? Using Critical Consciousness theory, we analyzed how structural racism is embedded in teacher education on both a macro systems level and a micro program level. First, we discuss what we know about how institutionalized racism is prevalent within teacher preparation spaces. Then, we take a focused look at some of our programs within our own school of education. More specifically, we explored both …

Just In Time Mathematics Review For Accounting Students, Anneke Bart, Michael May S.J., Debbie Pike

Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations

This paper describes the Just-in-Time Review developed for an undergraduate accounting course. The review materials cover five topics in algebra. Students take an online assessment, and online materials are made available to help students catch up in those areas where some review is recommended. This paper is a case study of the development and implementation of the Just-in-Time Review for an accounting course at Saint Louis University.

A Tale Of Four Departments: Interdisciplinary Faculty Learning Communities Informing Mathematics Education, Bryan D. Poole, Caroline Maher-Boulis, John Hearn, Jason Robinson, Patricia Mcclung, Amanda Jones

Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations

As a result of the Curriculum Foundations Project and the SUMMIT-P consortium, faculty from four different departments at Lee University created a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) with the goal of improving students’ attitudes toward undergraduate mathematics courses, including students’ perception of the utility of mathematics in their lives and the feelings of anxiety that they experience in these courses. The interdisciplinary collaborations resulted in introducing novel activities and manipulatives in various mathematics courses (Introduction to Statistics, Concepts of Mathematics I and II, and Algebra for Calculus). This paper first describes the efforts of creating the inter-departmental FLC. Second, it discusses …